Lit Books Disney reported to be refusing to pay royalties to Alan Dean Foster

You're right, looking into the history of good ole Walt and he ain't that great lets put it that way

 

Disney also describes itself as the happiest place on earth and fors everything it can to pay its employees the bare minimum so they can pay their lawyers to find ways to have ALL the money rather than just most of it.

Never give them the benefit of the doubt they are far worse than the lowest you think of them

 

Does anyone know if Zahn is having this problem too? I imagine he must have had a similar agreement.

Edit: sorry, posted that without explaining my thinking. I mean Zahn is another author like Alan who wrote Disney novels. So I'm wondering if it's in their Disney contract.

 

Literally every company. Corporations as entities are there to seek infinitely greater and greater profits for themselves and their investors at the expense of everyone and everything else. This isn't a Disney exclusive problem. It's a problem with capitalism as a whole.

 

I think Disney is bad even compared to other monsters of capitalism

 

Well, that answers one question, anyway - the TFA novel was under a different contract. Does Ms. Kowal explain anything about who ADF's original contract was with, what the original terms were, or who was paying his royalties prior to 2012?

Really not trying to be this much of a pain about it, and I'm not an expert on publishing contracts by any means. One thing I do understand is that typically, the publisher pays royalties. (Note that Del Rey, not Disney, pays the TFA royalties according to Ms. Kowal.) I just want to understand why Disney is held to be the party responsible for paying ADF's royalties when Del Rey - not Disney - has been the consistent publisher of those novels from their release 40+ years ago all the way up to the present day.

Also, @Barriss_Coffee asks a good question - are other early authors having this problem? Sadly, Brian Daley is no longer with us, but is L. Neil Smith getting his royalty checks? (And if so, who is he getting them from?)

 

The specific works in question seem to be the ANH novelizaiton and SOTME. The contracts on those are *very* early. Way earlier than Zahn's work.

Who knows how those contracts worked between LFL and Del Rey at the time. The only comparable situation would be the estate of Brian Daley, I would think. Not the Bantam era authors.

IG: @jedisufism

 

I have a love/hate view of Disney that has only gotten more complicated over the years but Alan Dean Foster is just as important to the legacy of Star Wars to me as Zahn, Filoni, and even George Lucas himself. He deserves to be treated better.

 

Only because it's larger. If we start singling out "good" corporations and "bad" corporations, we start to lose sight of the bigger picture of the system as a whole.

 

If this is happening to other authors as well, could this be the real reason some authors have stopped writing?

 

...dude, what authors are you even talking about? This isn't the first time recently that you've insinuated the existence of some kind of sinister conspiracy against Legends authors, and people told you perfectly well last time that most of them have continued writing for Star Wars.

This is kind of getting bizarre. And honestly, I think it's a bit insulting to ADF to muck up his very real problems with some kind of superfluous conspiracy theory.

 

Why would Disney even give a **** whether an author is from "legends" or not?

 

Disney is the worst of them though in terms of royalties. They change copyright laws and then want them changed back when advantageous. They have the most power but treat4 their employees the worst. They own your childhood and they know it, intentionally using nostalgia as a means to manipulate people into just joking about them owning everything instead of hating them with ever fiber of your being.

I mean he called them all monsters, feels like an acknowledgement of the systemic problem. Disney is the most perfidious is the thing. I think it is fair to single them out not as "the bad one" but as the epitome of US corporations, one that does not just exploit but actually makes people into fans from a young age of the company itself. Exxon is more evil in action, but it does not do entertainment, people don't take their kids to oil rigs and get taught to associate it with childhood and happiness.

Disney is a uniquely American type of evil

 

I’m sure whatever the issues are between Alan and Disney, they can and will be resolved amicably. If nothing else, because this issue is now in the public eye and can’t be dismissed easily.

I’m certain Disney will pay Alan Foster what he is owed. To do anything less would be to risk a horrible PR backlash. They’ve probably already reached out to him with an offer or a negotiation.

Perhaps I’m naive. But I have faith in businesses to do what’s best for business.

Being seen as villains in the eyes of the public and their customers is not good business. I’m sure they’ll make things right, if only for the sake of their image.

 

Complete speculation but ADF probably signed some crazy contract back in the day in the late 70's for the original Star Wars and Alien novelizations and SOTME where he worked closer with the creatives and some of his contract was tied into LFL and FOX rather than exclusively the publisher. That kind of thing wouldn't be done today and Disney might be balking at what is being asked.

And they shouldn't. Pay the man what he's due. A contract is a contract is a contract.

 

what scares me is thinking how many times this happens that we don't notice, that we don't raise a stink about

 

I think this is the heart of it—like Lucas’s original securing of the merch rights, ADF’s earliest contract(s) would date to a time before anyone knew SW was a golden goose, so his royalty agreements from back then could be much more generous than a later author could expect to get, and that's why they're the ones being singled out for hardball. Come to think of it I’m not totally certain SW authors automatically get royalties at all versus just an upfront payment—presumably different people are going to end up negotiating different terms but who knows.

I’d also note that while EU authors largely haven’t jumped into this yet (that I’ve seen), it’s definitely kicked up a huge fuss with authors generally—because Disney’s argument would have huge, huge implications for contract work going forward if it were allowed to stand. It’s much bigger than SW, bigger than Disney itself even.

 

I usually follow SF writer John Scalzi's blog and he has mentioned this in his Twitter feed.

 

More likely they just saw him as an easy target to make a completely asinine claim with, and if it works with him it's more likely to work again later.

 

I have to admit to being surprised to see the term royalties in relation to SW as I thought it was all work-for-hire, but it likely has been that way for a long time and if anything is going to predate that structure, Splinter is it.

 

If ADF has advanced Cancer maybe they think they can simply out last him. Its brutal but I wouldn't put it past them. It would be easy enough to spin it out in litigation and legal arguments for them to do that.

Now this is just a guess as i don't know ADF but I wonder if he is thinking the same thing which is why he has gone public

 

Hey remember when rocket raccoons permantly disabled creator had to have his brother do a go fund to provide. Also how he had to harass Disney to provide the man a screener of the movie which made them a billion dollars?

Hahahaha time to start drinking